Essentialism

This is not an ADHD book and it does not claim to be. But because it was written for overloaded people who say yes to everything and then get crushed under it, I often see it on the shelves of readers with ADHD.

It came out from Crown Business in April 2014. Its full title is Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. The library record for the American edition shows 260 pages; the Virgin Books edition in the UK is 304 pages. The publisher and the author's site say it has sold more than two million copies.

On Kitapyurdu (a Turkish online bookstore) I saw two Turkish editions: one as Öz from Koridor Yayıncılık in 2016, and one as Özcülük: Daha Azın Disiplinli Arayışı from Nova Kitap in August 2023. I could not clearly read the translator's name on the page, so I am not writing it. I give the chapter titles in their original English; the Turkish renderings are mine.

This piece relies on the book's table of contents, the publisher's and author's descriptions, library records and short published reviews. I will not pretend to recount the inside of the pages line by line. My opinions, though, are my own.

Who the author is

Greg McKeown was born in London in 1977. He studied communications at Brigham Young University and got his MBA from Stanford Business School in 2008. For a while he worked in the global leadership unit of Heidrick & Struggles, then founded his own leadership and strategy consulting firm in California. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader in 2012.

Before this he wrote the leadership book Multipliers (2010) with Liz Wiseman, and Effortless (2021) came later. So he is not an academic researcher but a consultant and speaker. I do not say this as a bad thing, but you need to know it to understand the book's tone and level of evidence.

The starting idea: success as its own obstacle

The author page at Stanford describes McKeown's starting point like this: he spent about fifteen years studying what keeps capable, ambitious people from breaking through to the next level, and concluded that success itself can be the obstacle. Success brings new opportunities, and the opportunities dilute the focus that brought the success.

I liked this observation, because it is true. The person who does a job well gets ten new versions of the same job, and saying yes to each one seems reasonable. The book's cover copy also draws the line clearly: the point is not getting more done in the same amount of time. The publisher does not present it as a time management hack; it presents it as a way of living and working.

It is related to the claim in the first pages of Seneca's essay On the Shortness of Life: those who complain that time is short are often the ones squandering what they have. McKeown's language is the language of the business world, Seneca's is the language of ethics, but both are looking at the same place.

Inside: Essence

The table of contents consists of four parts, and each part's heading carries a question. The first part is Essence, and its question is: what is the core mindset of an Essentialist?

It is made up of four short chapters. The first is The Essentialist, the Essentialist itself, a kind of introduction. Then Choose: the invincible power of choice. Next, Discern: the unimportance of practically everything. The part closes with Trade-off: which problem do I want?

That last one is, I think, the best heading in the book. It says that every choice is the price of something else, and that what is unavoidable is not a problem-free life but choosing which problem you will live with. A book, or a person, that does not accept this usually slides into the easy path of saying yes to everything.

Inside: Explore

The second part is Explore, and its question: how can we discern the trivial many from the vital few?

The headings surprised me at first, because there are things you would not expect in a productivity book. Escape: the perks of being unavailable. As far as I could tell from summaries, it argues for setting aside time to think, reducing distractions and allowing yourself to be bored. Look: see what really matters suggests looking like a journalist, filtering facts and opinions, and keeping a journal. Play: embrace the wisdom of your inner child and Sleep: protect the asset say that play feeds creativity and that sleep is an asset that needs protecting.

The part ends with Select: the power of extreme criteria. This is where the book's most quoted rule appears: score an option from zero to a hundred against a single criterion, and reject anything below ninety.

I will come back to this rule separately below.

Inside: Eliminate

The third part is Eliminate. The question: how can we cut out the trivial many?

Clarify: one decision that makes a thousand is about forming a clear statement of intent. The idea of one decision that makes a thousand others easier is familiar to anyone who likes strategy: in the piece on the site strategy is choosing what not to do, I arrived at the same place by another road. Dare: the power of a graceful "no" is about a polite no. According to summaries, the main move is separating the decision from the relationship: turning down the job does not mean turning down the person.

Uncommit: win big by cutting your losses describes cognitive traps such as sunk cost and the endowment effect and suggests the question "what would I pay for this?" Edit: the invisible art is devoted to simplifying the work, and Limit: the freedom of setting boundaries to setting boundaries and leaving other people's problems to them.

This is where the book may be most useful. In ADHD, overcommitment and not being able to say no are each a separate topic already, and the moves this part describes land right in the middle of the problem.

Inside: Execute

The fourth part is Execute, and its question: how can we make doing the vital few things almost effortless?

Buffer: the unfair advantage is about leaving extra time against uncertainty; summaries mention the example of fifty percent extra time. For someone who always estimates durations as shorter than they are, this is one of the book's most practical pieces of advice. Subtract: bring forth more by removing obstacles suggests finding and removing the single obstacle that slows the system down. Progress: the power of small wins is about defining small progress and starting early and small. Flow: the genius of routine covers routine, and Focus: what's important now? covers focusing on the present and avoiding multitasking. Summaries mention two Greek concepts of time here, chronos and kairos.

Be: the Essentialist life ties the Essentialist life to a question of meaning and purpose. The book ends with an appendix: Leadership essentials, Essentialism for managers.

Its greatest strengths

It frames the question correctly. Most productivity books ask how to fit more work in. McKeown asks the opposite: why is there so much work, and which of it should I not do at all?

The short review in Publishers Weekly calls the book "a smart, brief guide for the overloaded and the insatiable." Being short really is a virtue. Judging by the table of contents, the idea is built in the first part, and the rest carries it into practice.

Its second strength is that it names the price. The Trade-off chapter and the idea of the graceful no are good tools for knocking down the "I can keep up with everything" defense. The third is that it takes sleep and play seriously. In a book about work these usually end up as footnotes added as an afterthought.

Its weak points and my criticism

The level of evidence is light. According to the Stanford page, the book is based on the author's research and his work with companies and individuals. I have not seen a study that tests the Essentialism method itself. The book is built on well-told stories, familiar cognitive biases and consulting experience. That does not make it wrong, but it should not be read as a review of the evidence either.

The second problem is privilege. The perks of being unavailable, long uninterrupted thinking time and saying a graceful no are the luxury of someone who is not afraid of what the no will cost. As far as I could tell from the table of contents, the book does not put at its center the question of who can say no and who cannot. Even for someone with a business, drawing a line with a client has a cost; the piece on the site about setting boundaries with clients deals with this. For someone with a boss, someone they are responsible for caring for, or a shift, saying no is far more expensive.

The third is the ninety rule. Scoring every option from zero to a hundred and rejecting anything below ninety looks to me like a recipe for all-or-nothing thinking. As a filter, the rule is fine. As a decision rule, though, it can lead to analysis paralysis, to never seeing the "good enough" options, and to saying yes to nothing.

The fourth is the other side of the coin. The Uncommit chapter advises cutting sunk costs. For someone with ADHD, though, the problem is sometimes the exact opposite: they already leave many things half-finished. That is why the piece on the site about the hobby graveyard matters. Learning to quit is very different from making quitting a habit.

For the reader with ADHD

I could not see a heading devoted to ADHD in the table of contents. As someone who needs reminders and external structure, I would read the chapters on routine and focus with caution. As I explain in the glossary, automaticity forms more slowly in this brain, so the promise of "the genius of routine" in the Flow: the genius of routine heading does not, to my mind, come true at the same speed for everyone.

Even so, there are three things I could read and adapt for myself: naming the price, leaving a time buffer, and the question "would this be a graceful no?" The rest I would need to adjust to my own system.

How I would use it

Instead of reading it in order from start to finish, I would open the second and third parts first, because that is where it becomes clear whether the advice works. I would not skip the chapters devoted to sleep and play either. The first part is short and carries the idea. As for the fourth part, I would set it aside and open it only after spending two weeks writing down in my own calendar what each commitment costs. Someone who arrives with a written account can get something concrete out of the Buffer and Progress chapters.

Who it is for, and who it is not for

For someone who says yes to everything, whose calendar is filled by someone else, and who asks afterwards "why did I agree to this." Especially for a manager, an entrepreneur, a freelancer.

It is not suitable for those looking for a review of the evidence. It is not really worth it for someone who is not yet in a position to say no and whose whole day is tied to other people's schedules either: the advice is right but the conditions are missing.

Its place on the shelf

It has three close neighbors on the shelf. Deep Work is about protecting focus, that is, how to do work that has already been chosen. Essentialism comes one step before it: which work to choose. Indistractable looks for the cause of distraction inside. Atomic Habits is about how to sustain what has been chosen.

I think of them as a sequence: first what, then how to focus, then how to sustain it. McKeown stands at the first link, and that is where he is at his best.

My take

I think the book should be read not as a philosophy of life but as a sorting list. Take the idea that saying yes has a price, brush the ninety rule aside with the back of your hand, and work out with your own accounting what saying no will cost you. McKeown's question is apt. Not all of his answers have to fit your life.